Rainy-day protest against sale of Harrow Lane site

A meeting called by Conservative councillors was held on Harrow Lane playing fields on Saturday to protest against controversial council plans to sell the site. About 50 people attended, including MP Sally-Ann Hart and Labour Cllr Andy Batsford, the housing lead, who defended the policy. Report by Nick Terdre, photos by Russell Jacobs.

Some 50 local residents and councillors gathered on Harrow Lane playing fields in intermittent rain on the morning of Saturday 10 July to attend a meeting called by Cllr Mike Edwards, one of the Ashdown ward representatives, to protest against the sale of the site by Hastings Borough Council.

Also present were Conservative councillors Andy Patmore, leader of the Conservative HBC group, Paul Foster, John Rankin, Rob Cooke and Peter Pragnell, who is also chairman of East Sussex County Council, as well as Hastings & Rye MP Sally-Ann Hart and Labour councillor and housing lead Andy Batsford.

After a photo opportunity in which members of the public were asked to hold up placards to form the slogan NOT4SALE, Cllr Edwards spoke about the various housing developments planned for the area: for Harrow Lane he said it was 150 houses originally planned which had been increased to 212, though when he asked Cllr Batsford what the correct figure was, the answer was 140.

Permission existed for 208 houses on the Holmhurst St Mary site, he said, and 67 were planned on the site adjacent to the playing fields by the developer Park Lane, while on the unoccupied Ashdown House site across the road the proposal is for 148 houses plus a retail store.

That amounted to more than 420 houses without counting the playing fields site, Edwards said, creating a volume of traffic which Harrow Lane, a narrow, curving road, would not be able to sustain, while local services such as schools and GP surgeries, already under pressure, would be swamped.

100% social housing

He also claimed that Cllr Batsford had done a deal with a developer to build 100% social housing on the site – Batsford said this was the intention – which he criticised as creating a ghetto. “A successful estate is a mixed estate, so for the council to come up with a scheme that is 100% social is lunatic, and the Conservatives firmly oppose it,” said Edwards.

MP Hart then told the meeting: “Nobody doubts that we need to build more homes for people to live in, affordable homes, but it has to be the right homes in the right place, this is not the right place. This is a playing field that was given to Hastings Borough Council many years ago for the benefit of Hastings community, and it has to stay for the benefit of the community, for a green space.”

Members of the crowd joined in as she chanted, “Not for sale! Not for sale!”

Covenant “hard to enforce”

Edwards explained that the land was gifted to the council (back in the 1870s) with a covenant attached forbidding the building of more than one house per acre. He suggested however that it would be hard to enforce: “Developers can take out insurance to cover themselves against any objection, or the covenant being upheld, and they wouldn’t lose out. The legal case is very watertight but very hard to enforce. We haven’t got enough money to fight it through the courts. So we’re really here to shame the council into withdrawing these plans.”

Cllr Patmore referred to Hastings’ successful application for funding from the government’s Town Deal initiative. “One of their aspirations is to make Hastings and St Leonards a garden town, and how can we have those credentials of building something special and beautiful green spaces if we just build over very green space that we have?”

While outline permission has been granted for building on the playing fields, and the Ashdown House site is still at the application stage, not everything is running smoothly for the other two developments. In April permission was refused by the planning committee for the Park Lane development, and according to Edwards the developer of the Holmhurst St Mary site has sold it on, although they had spent five years working on it. One of the problems is that Japanese knotweed is established on the site.

For or against?

Cllr Batsford later questioned where the MP and one of the Tory councillors really stood on the issue of selling the site. In April, in a letter to constituents who live in Harrow Lane of which HOT has had sight, Hart wrote: “I do appreciate the wider concern for the development proposed for the Harrow Lane Playing Fields, however I believe these too are necessary if we are to meet the growing demand for housing in our town.”

HOT has asked Hart for clarification of her position but has received no reply.

Batsford also claimed that Cllr Rankin “has publicly said many times that HBC themselves should develop it with the Housing company and build 4 or 5 luxury homes on the site to sell at market price to make a profit.”

Consulted about this, Rankin told HOT he had spoken against the Harrow Lane application at the consultation forum in 2016 and when it came before HBC planning in 2018, as well as in an article on Hastings in Focus. He claimed: “Andy Batsford has a track record of attributing words to me that I haven’t said in order to give some kind of credibility to HBC’s poorly thought out housing strategy.

“To clarify I am against the sale of this land to a private developer – as it is owned by the people of Hastings. What I have said in the past (on many occasions including full council ) is that if HBC really can show a need for this space to be developed then they should do this themselves through the Hastings Housing Company which was set up for this very purpose and has access to almost unlimited funding through the Public Works Loan Board and a host of private sector lenders.

“The site should only be developed after other sites have been completed and should retain at least 60-70 percent environmentally friendly recreation space.”

Owning decisions

After the meeting Batsford told HOT he “felt it was really important that as the Lead for Housing and Homelessness for the town that I come and talk with, to listen to and answer any questions about the Harrow Lane site. As Councillors we have to own our decisions and be able to defend and explain why we think it’s the right plan for the whole town.”

Edward’s throwing out of numbers for the site “like a human random word tombola” and Hart’s  expression of support for the campaign after what she wrote to residents in the letter mentioned above were “pure and simple electioneering, with no thought to the needs of the whole town and its massive affordable housing crisis.”

He would take the concerns raised by those he spoke to “back to the developers to discuss the layout and design, but as I said on Saturday, it is in the local plan, it is a key site to bring those much needed real affordable homes to the local families of Hastings. The developers we have chosen will deliver a 100% affordable site, currently a split of 50% LHA [local housing assocation] rented and 50% shared ownership. Details of the deal will be announced soon.”

A petition has been launched by Cllr Foster calling on HBC not to sell the playing fields. When this report went to press, it had gathered just under 1,000 signatures.

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